In the moment, when something like this has happened, I've seen parents call a halt to the grabbing and turn to the person in charge for clarification. "Hey, let's hold on for a minute and check with Miss Lucy to see how many books each of you can take. Miss Lucy, can you help us out over here? What's the rule on how many books each member of the group can take at a time?"

That's not parenting someone else's child. It's asking for clarification of the situation so that everyone knows what to do. Last time I saw this, it was at a birthday party with one of those cakes that are made out of many cupcakes that are frosted to look like one big cake. One kid was making off with about 5 cupcakes and a parent, not his own parent, just asked the mother of the birthday child how many cupcakes there were per child. The cupcake thief had to return three of the cupcakes. It also works when it's an adult who is hogging all the cupcakes.

This is brilliant.

I think we should all do it.

Yes! Thanks for this suggestion. I wondered what to do in the case of an adult being greedy because correcting them probably wouldn't stop them. I will file this one in my mental rolodex.

It's someone else's child, if I understand etiquette correctly this is up to the shop owner or the parent to deal with, other than no one gets to say anything and remain in the bounds of etiquette.

Actually, yeah, I change my answer and POD this. In that situation, I didn't think there would be anything wrong with saying something politely to the child but I can see how it could have the potential to be offensive to some. It would probably irk me if someone said something to my kid before I had a chance to. Even more so if I didn't happen to think my kid did anything wrong...

In the moment, when something like this has happened, I've seen parents call a halt to the grabbing and turn to the person in charge for clarification. "Hey, let's hold on for a minute and check with Miss Lucy to see how many books each of you can take. Miss Lucy, can you help us out over here? What's the rule on how many books each member of the group can take at a time?"

Camlan, I'm with Toots and the others. I think this is a brilliant way to address the problem - child or adult who's doing it. Thanks for posting this - I'm going to keep it in my memory bank for the future, too!

Sigh. I hate this. Because on the one hand, you don't want to discourage kids from liking books. But on the other hand, you don't want to encourage greediness.

I work a small fair every summer for my workplace. Usually it attracts a lot of educators, but this year it was held on the same day as a larger fair about an hour away. The fair was still busy, but there were a lot more families and fewer librarians. We always do a game where kids can win freebies. This year the "big win" prize was a book, while the smaller prizes were stickers, tattoos, bookmarks, etc. There were an unbelievable number of kids who came back to ask whether they could just have a book even though they hadn't won the game. Or they got in line over and over and over again. (Eventually they were told they couldn't try any more. No, we didn't have a max number of tries rule, and if they had come back several times over the course of the day it wouldn't have been a big deal, but it was back to back to back. And then after being told they were out of tries, would wait until the person who told them that turned away and got another employee to give them the game pieces.)

We also had a number of thefts. Usually one or two books might get nicked (high profile books that are coveted by librarians) but this year...wow. Turn your back and three books would go missing. It was crazy. And we give all the remaining books away at the end of the fair, and we tell people this when they express interest in another book (we're not allowed to sell the books either.) I've even given books to people who really look like they want/would enjoy that book. But oh no. Can't wait your turn. Gotta steal FREE books.

In the moment, when something like this has happened, I've seen parents call a halt to the grabbing and turn to the person in charge for clarification. "Hey, let's hold on for a minute and check with Miss Lucy to see how many books each of you can take. Miss Lucy, can you help us out over here? What's the rule on how many books each member of the group can take at a time?"

Camlan, I'm with Toots and the others. I think this is a brilliant way to address the problem - child or adult who's doing it. Thanks for posting this - I'm going to keep it in my memory bank for the future, too!

I can't take credit for this technique. It's my sister-in-law's. She's just really, really good at dealing with kids. And I think it works well with kids because most of them are used to rules--they have rules at school, at dance lessons, at the pool, etc. Can't tell you how many times I've gotten kids to behave (or just do what I want/need them to do at that moment) by telling them, "It's the rule."

I agree with everyone else that said the bookstore employee should be the one to set the rules about the free books.

I don't know if the first child to arrive should be the first child to get to select a book, as some of the mothers might rely on public transportation and be tied to that schedule. At the time the meeting is scheduled to begin, each child could put their name in a hat and at the end of the meeting, the meeting's leader could draw names to decide who gets to pick first. If there are any children that arrived after the meeting began, they could be allowed to choose last.

I also think that each child should be allowed to choose only one book per meeting. If there are extras left over, the other patrons of the bookstore will have a chance to choose them. Sharing the books with those who do cannot make it to the club meetings or who have grandchildren who would like the books but live too far away to participate in the club could show the book club children to think about people that are not in their immediate circle.

Someone asked if the books are multiple copies of the same thing or all different. They are all different, each single copies of a distinct book.

I can't imagine the woman who does this event doing something like a lottery or a more time-consuming, formal way of giving out the books. I don't think I can try to impose that sort of structure on her; she's a very informal person (and it would feel like overstepping to me to tell her to run a lottery, limit them to one apiece and give the others to non-attendees, etc..). I would bet that before she'd put that kind of formal structure in place, she'd just stop giving the books to the girls. Also it wouldn't be in this bookstore's character to be giving out free books to people who aren't in the book group. And the leader is not the owner of the store (it's a small regional chain, with a number of stores).

But it is maddening that this one girl scooped up a full half of the bounty, and she really grabbed the best ones. So disheartening to see bad manners rewarded and good manners punished. My own daughter only got one book, which she ended up disliking and won't even finish reading, and there were some delightful looking books in that greedy girl's arms.

I do think I will bring it up to the leader of the book group and say that lately there has been an issue with a single girl grabbing a huge number of the books before the others can even glance at them (the one girl moved like lightning).

Anyway we are lucky to have this woman doing this program. Both my daughters have loved participating in the book group. We've found some great books as a result (and read some books we didn't like, but that's okay, too) and had some nice moments discussing them with other moms & tweens, and the group sends questions to authors, who write back to us. Evidently there are some authors who have formed a sort of sentimental attachment to our book club from afar as a result of that, a couple of whom sent some little token gifts to the girls and one who came to the group to visit it, and only two authors over the last several years declined to answer our questions. So you can see I am operating from a position of gratitude and not wanting to complain overall.

I can't imagine the woman who does this event doing something like a lottery or a more time-consuming, formal way of giving out the books. I don't think I can try to impose that sort of structure on her; she's a very informal person (and it would feel like overstepping to me to tell her to run a lottery, limit them to one apiece and give the others to non-attendees, etc..). I would bet that before she'd put that kind of formal structure in place, she'd just stop giving the books to the girls. Also it wouldn't be in this bookstore's character to be giving out free books to people who aren't in the book group. And the leader is not the owner of the store (it's a small regional chain, with a number of stores).

But it is maddening that this one girl scooped up a full half of the bounty, and she really grabbed the best ones. So disheartening to see bad manners rewarded and good manners punished. My own daughter only got one book, which she ended up disliking and won't even finish reading, and there were some delightful looking books in that greedy girl's arms.

I do think I will bring it up to the leader of the book group and say that lately there has been an issue with a single girl grabbing a huge number of the books before the others can even glance at them (the one girl moved like lightning).

Why not offer to coordinate the process of giving the books away? You could continue to do so even after your daughter ages out of the book club.

If the bookstore doesn't want to offer the free copies to other patrons, then I think the fairest way would be to have the children write down their names, place it in a hat, and then draw one name at a time to determine the order in which the children get to choose. If there are books left by the time each child has chosen one, then they can go back through in order, choosing a second, third, fourth .... etc.

Does the bookstore have set rules about how many books someone can take? If not, then this needs to be addressed with the bookstore. I was brought up with the 'leave some for others' rule, but I realize not everyone has this rule in his or her home. If the bookstore wants to make sure everyone has their fair share of books, then an employee either should hand out the books, or it should be made known prior to bookclub that the rule is one item per person per household, or something like that.

I think a simple rule of "no one gets seconds (or thirds) until everyone gets firsts" is whats needed. Its a pretty common rule, it makes sense, its simple to explain to kids and pretty much everyone 'gets' it. Its an easy thing for the store owner to announce, or even just make a simple sign to put at the book table and easy and quick for people to repeat as reminders to kids "oh, hold on a sec sweetie, looks like not everyone got firsts yet, so just one for now, later you can try for more."